1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to devices for accurately and safely cutting tablets into smaller parts to reduce dosage or to make them easier to ingest.
2. Description of the Related Art
The present invention is generally directed to a pill splitter that accurately and safely cuts pills into smaller pieces while minimizing the risk of cuts or abrasions to hands and particularly fingers. The pill splitter is also ergonomically designed to make it easier to grip and handle thus further reducing the risk of harm to fingers and hands.
It is well recognized that some tablets are either difficult to swallow because of their relatively large size or contain a dose of an active ingredient that is beyond what the user is required to take at a particular time. For example, it is not uncommon for a physician to instruct a patient to take one half of a pill three times a day or to take one and a half pills three times a day or some other dosage or frequency that involves the necessity of taking half of a pill.
In some cases, it is less expensive to purchase smaller quantities of pills that each have high concentrations of active ingredient per pill rather than a large number of pills with lower concentrations of active ingredient per pill. For those who purchase the higher concentration pills, it becomes necessary to split the pills. For pills which are relatively large in diameter, splitting of the pill can usually be accomplished by grasping the pill between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and applying a breaking force. However, even with the relatively large pills, the breaking force required is often sufficiently great so that it may not be within the capability of the elderly or the feeble or those whose finger-gripping strength or ability has been impaired for some reason.
Many pills are of small diameter and cannot readily be grasped in a manner to achieve the necessary leverage to break them. For these smaller pills, most people find it necessary to use a kitchen knife or similar implement to shear the pill or score it to a greater extent so that it can be broken between the fingers. The pill is placed upon a supporting surface and, when the knife is applied to it, more often than not the pill does not separate cleanly into two halves, but crumbles into several parts. Furthermore, a knife or other sharp object may not always be handy when it is time to take the pill.
Apart from the inconvenience, irritation and frequent crumbling of the pill when using these methods of pill splitting, there is also the possibility of having the pill drop or slip and be lost or contaminated, as well as the more serious problem of possible injury to the hands or fingers if the knife slips.
To solve some of these problems, pill boxes have been made that include compartments with pill grips to hold pills in place and blades to cut through them. One of the problems with such pill boxes is that they have exposed blades that are very sharp and capable of slicing through human skin. This makes them potentially hazardous to the user. Another problem is that they are difficult to handle and ergonomically undesirable, particularly for use by elderly or impaired individuals.
While there have been numerous attempts at producing pill splitters for the purposes intended herein, such pill splitters tend to suffer from one or more of the disadvantages mentioned above. It would therefore be a significant advance in the art to provide a bill box and splitter which can safely and effectively store and split pills while reducing the risk of lacerations to fingers and hands, and which can easily be operated by individuals who may have difficulty gripping objects.